Local Legalese Term of the Day: "PPA"

What does "PPA" mean in a case caption (when it doesn't mean "phenylpropanolamine," the subject of a spate of recent litigation), and where? I wrote about this more than 10 years ago, so I thought enough time had passed to reprise it.

Comments

[loki13]

Those of us here at the time remember that lesson in legal French. 😉 Back when VC was predominantly, you know, about legal issues. And bears. And (for various reasons) rent prices in DC.

[JohnW in Md]

And baseball!

[loki13]

You can't, um, bat 1.000!

🙂

[James Pollock]

YOU can't. I have.
undergraduate recreational one-pitch softball. Heckuva season.

10 AB 10 H 9 RS

[JimM47]

I cheated and Westlaw'd it. Seems to stand for "per proxima amici," which is legal Latin for the more common "by his/her next friend." Seems to show up primarily in New England.

[JimM47]

Curiously "prochein ami" also appears to be legal Latin for the same concept.

[loki13]

But ... not Latin. Legal French (prochein ami).

Parlez-vous français mon ami?

[loki13]

(BTW, there are some occasions when it is spelled "prochain amy" which makes my head heard, and think that there is some woman named Amy who is really in favor of, um, chains?)

[Eugene Volokh]

Loki13: Dude, using actual French in place of law French is such a rookie mistake. If there isn't something broken about it (or, better yet, Frenglish), it totally lacks law-French-isimilitude.

[loki13]

True that! I would say that knowing some real French might be a hindrance to understanding legal French.

[JimM47]

Aha! That explains it.

[James Pollock]

"Parlez-vous français mon ami?"

Odd that you bring this up right around the time that we celebrate the defeat of the French army at the Battle of Puebla.

[DaivdBehar]

If you are correct, this phrase should void the legal utterance. If you use a phrase in French, Spanish or ever Arabic, it does not violate the Establishment Clause, because it does not promote a religion as Latin does.

Using a foreign language may violate the Fifth Amendment, however, by failing to provide notice. Any legal utterance written above the 6th grade reading level is a violation of the Fifth Amendment procedural (the real one) due process right to notice. If the foreign phrase is below the sixth grade in that country, it may not be in our country, if taught at a higher grade.

Sorry, lawyer d-word. You have to speaka the English, or get out of our country. Go to Venezuela where you belong.

[James Pollock]

You keep bringing up your limited reading level. Why?

[hardreaders]

Didn't EV do this one just like a couple months ago? Counting on VCers having a very short memory? Maybe obscure legal terms are hard to come by (seems unlikely though), but we need to see a little more creativity!

[Jimmy the Dane]

For anyone who has ever been in the City of Brotherly Love, it stands for the infamous and dastardly Philadelphia Parking Authority.

[LSchnapf]

Prospective Purchaser Agreement (with USEPA)

[James Pollock]

Pre-Payment Agreement.